Part V: The Road to Publication

I'd finished the first draft. I'd finished the second draft. The manuscript was in the hands of the editor. I had nothing left to do but wait for Wizards of the Coast to send me my author's copies, right? WRONG!

The really taxing part of the process was certainly over, but I STILL had little things to do in order to make sure The Crab came out the way I wanted it. First and foremost among these was keeping myself available to Rob King (my fantabulous editor) so that he could call me when questions arose. As it turned out, not many did ... but I always felt like I was on call.

My first ancillary assignment came in early December (back before I'd even finished the second draft). I got an email from the person responsible for promotions in the WotC Book Department. "We need your bio for the flats."

"Flats?"

You see, before a book comes out, in fact often before it's even done being written, the publisher has to sell it to the buyers from the major book distributors. They do that by printing up copies of the cover with little tidbits of information on the back ... but they don't wrap the cover around 300 pages of novel — they just leave it flat. Hence the name "flats." The information ranges from crucial (when will it be released, how much will it cost) to extraordinarily dull (how much a case of the books will weigh), but it also includes information about the author.

The flats for The Crab had such intriguing details as:

• L5R fans have been involved in development of the storyline.
• This novel shines a spotlight on the arch-villains of the entire L5R world
• The author is experienced in both the book and gaming industries

The flats also contained a short bio. This was the first time my agreement with the powers that be in the Book Department about my exclamation point was put to the test. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Go read the first few entries in my FAQ.) And, as fate would have it, the test was more difficult than any of us imagined. I suppose I was being pretty harsh on my friends ... but I was (and still am) adamant about wanting to get the name I WANT on my books. In the end, the flats were at least one exclamation point light (from my perspective), but they were fine. (I've still got some ... they make GREAT autograph cards ... presuming anyone ever wants an autograph from me.)

My next bit of work came when Rob King had finished his editorial pass. I then had the opportunity to read the manuscript and ask for changes. It might come as a surprise to some of you that an author can request changes to the editor's work (I know it came as a surprise to me when I first found out about it ... I mean, I knew people like Stephen King got that sort of courtesy, but I never thought that even first time authors did).

Now, those of you who have been paying attention to these essays know how I feel about editors. They are a writer's best friends, and the writer should listen to them in almost EVERY instance. However, I have to say that I was unable to resist the temptation to tweak Rob's work ... just a LITTLE. The trick was, I had to do it all in less than a week! So, still less than two months removed from my writing, I once again had to read the entire manuscript and MAKE myself refrain from doing major rewriting. This was harder than I care to think about. I was still uncertain enough about the quality of the book that I WANTED to make wholesale changes in several sections.

In the end, I only made corrections to the spellings of some Japanese words, and one or two instances where Rob's grammatical fixes changed the underlying meaning (usually this occurred in an instance when I was trying to draw the readers into a particularly oriental concept ... and to be truthful, his fixes DID work better from an occidental perspective ... but that wasn't what I was after).

Now, surely I was done, right?

Well ... mostly right!

There were a still few promotional activities I had to participate in.

The most noteworthy of this was when I had to do an interview for use on the Wizards of the Coast website. The funny thing about that was that the interviewer was ... ME! Yes, all those interviews you see on the site are self-administered Q&As from a basic form that the authors are encouraged to elaborate on to their taste. And, being the kind of guy I am, I elaborated quite a bit. Oddly enough, it was during the process of writing this interview that I finally came to truly and finally believe that The Crab was a good book. It was only by looking at the book as a whole, and answering questions about why I made the choices I did that I really appreciated what I had accomplished.

Next: Stan! On The Run! Is it really a book signing if no one shows up?
 
 

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Crab: Part 1

Crab: Part 2

Crab: Part 3

Crab: Part 4

Crab: Part 5

Crab: Part 6